


Missing Wings

by TheCinematicRevealThatBatmanIsDead



Category: DDT Pro-Wrestling, Professional Wrestling, 新日本プロレス | New Japan Pro-Wrestling
Genre: Aimless Golden Lovers suffering - Freeform, Canon-Typical Violence, Kayfabe Compliant, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-01-23 08:08:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12502808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCinematicRevealThatBatmanIsDead/pseuds/TheCinematicRevealThatBatmanIsDead
Summary: Kenny Omega's fall from grace.Kota Ibushi's rise from the ashes.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> No, I don't know where I'm going with this. I just love these two so much.

_August 18th, 2012_

The Kroyt’s Wrath from the middle rope to the canvas should have killed him. He landed right on his neck and curled up like a dying wasp. That was it. Kenny had it in the bag. Frantically, he went for the cover, pushing Ibushi’s legs against his chest and laying his own legs over Ibushi’s arms. As soon as the ref started counting, Kenny could feel the tension building in Ibushi’s body. Panicking, he put more pressure on the legs, folding him in half and repositioning his own legs to put every one of his 202 pounds toward keeping Ibushi’s shoulders and probably-broken neck on the canvas for just two more seconds. As the ref’s hand was coming down for three, Kenny realized his mistake: he was putting his own leg strength up against Ibushi’s. Ibushi the kickboxer. Ibushi the former K-2 karate champion. The actual real Kota Ibushi, who had the thighs of a greek god and a rolling solebutt that was like a point-blank shotgun blast to the stomach. Ibushi kicked out with such force that Kenny went ass-over-teakettle into the ropes on the opposite side of the ring.

Goddammit, he thought, slapping the mat. _Goddammit._ He’d overthought it. He’d overrotated on the cover, tried to get fancy, whatever, he did _something_ wrong. But Ibushi was still down. There was still time.

Kenny gestured to the crowd that he was going up, and he climbed the turnbuckle to deliver a high-risk maneuver. _Maybe a 450_ , he thought. _A little “fuck you” cherry on an “I’m the best” sundae--OOF!_

Out of nowhere, the point of Ibushi’s elbow hit him in the jaw and every nerve in his body started buzzing. He felt himself go limp for just a moment as Ibushi began to climb, positioning himself for a top-rope ‘rana. How? How was he still going? Kenny gritted his teeth and shoved him to the canvas, hoping to create enough space to take a breath and shake out the cobwebs. No dice. The crazy son of a bitch was back up in a second, and in the blink of an eye, Kenny’s head was between Ibushi’s thighs, and Ibushi’s arms were wrapped around Kenny’s waist. Either of these things would have been great outside the context of a wrestling match, but this was a set-up for something, either a piledriver from the second rope or a powerbomb that could end with Kenny cracking his head against the ringpost. Either option could end the match, along with their careers. At this point, with the amount of adrenaline in his system, the former seemed more important than the latter. Bracing himself, he lifted Kota into the beginnings of a back body drop, and Ibushi disengaged, rolling back into the opposite corner and then _somersaulting_ into an overhead kick that caught Kenny between the eyes.

 _Fuck_ , he thought. He had to create some space, or Ibushi would kill him. Already, the Golden Star was climbing the ropes for another shot at Kenny, who, in desparation, kicked him in the center of the chest and stood up on the top rope. As he struggled to find his balance, he glanced at the spot in the ring where Ibushi had been moments ago and found it empty. Ibushi was on his feet again, gripping the rope beneath his left foot. Kenny shifted to put his foot on the ringpost, assuming that Ibushi was trying to shake him loose, but he was wrong. Ibushi sprang off the ropes, twisted in midair, and caught Kenny in a flying headscissors position. Time froze. The crowd, which had been all but completely silent for the last two minutes, began to realize what they were about to see. A horrible mass of dread coalesced in Kenny’s stomach and his only thought was

_Oh._

Ibushi arched his back and flexed his legs, throwing Kenny like a dart off of the turnbuckle to the floor outside the ring, a seven and a half foot drop onto smooth concrete. Kenny heard a collective gasp as he sailed through the air, then a roar as every person in Budokan hall screamed in unison, then finally a _thunk_ as he landed flat on his back.

The 10,000 people in attendance were all on their feet. There were no chants of “Ibushi” or “Omega”; there was simply noise, energy, emotion in its rawest form. The floor rumbled. The harsh flourescent lights on the ceiling began to soften and fade until they blended into a warm yellowish glow that spread through Budokan, through the ring, through the crowd, into his veins. Kota had done it. This was pro wrestling. _Ibutan,_ he thought hazily. _You make this all worth it._ He closed his eyes and smiled as the referee began to count.

* * *

 _January 4, 2017_  

_One_

_Two_

“H-he’s c...he’s counting, Kenny”

_Three_

_Four_

“We’re at four, babe, c’mon”

Who was talking? He opened his eyes and recognized the blurry sillhouettes of the Young Bucks. When did they get here?

_Five_

“Oh my god.”

“Kenny, talk to me.”

_Six_

“This sucks.”

“Yeah.”

_Seven_

He felt leather on his bare skin and a comforting pressure as the Bucks tried to lift him to his feet.

_Eight_

_Nine_

“Help me lift him, Nick”

“I know, I know, I know”

_Ten_

“Hey hey hey hey hey!”

The Bucks had pulled him into a sitting position when he felt them let go. He saw Nick back away and put his hands up, a look of frustration on his face as he said “No problem!”

Someone grabbed him and dumped him onto the apron. His first thought was that it was Ibushi, but Ibushi’s hands were rougher, his knuckles more square from a career in kickboxing. This person’s hands were baby-smooth and perfectly manicured. It might have been a ring doctor or one of the DDT cornermen. This place was pretty loud for a DDT show, even one at Budokan. Whatever.

For a moment, he lay there on the apron, limp, one leg in the ring, one leg dangling to the floor. Then whoever put him there shoved him the rest of the way into the ring. Kenny grabbed the ropes and lifted himself to his knees, and as he did,  he the top rope vibrate, and he knew that Ibushi must be ascending the turnbuckle. He turned to look and saw a broad-shouldered man with dyed blonde hair and garish purple and gold tiger-striped trunks standing upright on the top rope.

It was then that the fog began to clear. He was in the Tokyo Dome. This was the main event of Wrestle Kingdom 11. The IWGP Heavyweight Championship was on the line. He hadn’t spoken to Ibushi in years. He had just taken a back body drop through a table and now his opponent, “The Rainmaker” Kazuchika Okada was...flying feetfirst towards him in a gorgeous missile dropkick.

The 700,000 Yen ring boots connected squarely with his solar plexus, and Kenny flipped over and landed with his feet tangled in the ropes. Struggling to breathe, there wasn’t a lot he could do as Okada made the cover. He managed to kick out at 2 and a half, but he only had a few seconds of rest before Okada came flying at him again, this time with his patented elbow drop. Even as punch-drunk and exhausted as he was, Kenny realized that Okada was mopping up. The son of a bitch had the gall to believe that the match was over. He went to the ropes, clutching his abdomen, then struck his signature pose, arms outstretched and bathing in the adulation the crowd was raining down on him. _No. No, no, absolutely not_. Okada wasn’t going to leave this arena unless it was on a stretcher. Kenny swallowed as Okada picked him up by his trunks and put him in a rear waistlock. No more thinking about Kota. He had to be The Cleaner again, the stone-cold contract killer that had fought through a G1’s worth of better wrestlers than Okada to earn this opportunity in the first place. Okada went for the wristlock and, on instinct, Kenny dashed to the ropes. The Bucks were shouting encouragements at him.

“You’re still in this, Kenny!”

“Yeah, you’re still in this, baby!”

 They were right. This wasn’t over until yet. He shook his head to clear it as Okada started throwing forearms to his spine to try and break his grip on the ropes. _He’s gonna throw the rainmaker. That’s for sure. I have to shut it down._

Okada pulled him free of the ropes and caught Kenny’s wrist in his iron grip. He pushed  Kenny out and prepared to pull him back in like a yo-yo, his arm cocked back, ready to deliver the short-arm clothesline. At that moment, Kenny lunged forward and ducked down, driving his shoulder into Okada’s abdomen. He pushed through until he felt the impact of the champion’s back against the corner pad. The gasp of pain he heard confirmed that, despite his bravado, Okada’s spine and kidneys were seriously hurt, and that meant the plan was back on. He pulled Okada back and speared him into the corner again, and this time, Okada’s pain was audible to everyone at ringside. Kenny tried to lift him up to the top turnbuckle, but his hip, still smarting from its impact with the metal skeleton of the table, gave out on him.

Okada, the champion for a reason, took the opportunity to batter him back towards the center with a couple of forearms, but Kenny shut him down with a slap to the face that spun him around and echoed through the arena. He gritted his teeth and lifted Okada onto the top rope, facing away from the ring.

He stepped back for a moment, like a painter examining a blank canvas, then began climbing. He wrapped Okada’s arm over his shoulders for a backdrop, but Okada used his free hand to rain down a series of punches on the bridge of Kenny’s nose, sending him rolling back to the mat. Kenny ripped his elbow pads off, threw them to the ground in frustration and tried again. This time he locked Okada in a full nelson and began climbing, first to the middle ropes, then to the top. Okada realized what was coming and tried to wrap his feet around the ringpost, but Kenny wrenched upward, forcing him to stand on the top rope. As they began to fall, Kenny whipped Okada over his head in a dragon suplex that dumped the champion directly onto his neck.

For a few precious seconds, Kenny couldn’t do anything but lay there thrashing and gasping for air. At Red Shoes’ urging, he rolled over onto his belly and clawed his way across the mat to cover Okada. This was it. He draped one arm over Okada’s chest and Red Shoes started the count.

_One_

Part of him was a bit disappointed that it was over.

_Two_

He still had so much left.

_Th-_

Then Okada’s shoulder jolted off the mat and Kenny felt something he hadn’t felt in five years.

* * *

 

_August 18th, 2012_

_Nine_

_Ten_

_Eleven_

He considered staying put for the twenty-count. No one would blame him. He had taken a moonsault from the balcony and a hurricanrana out to the floor. He had come closer to dying than he had since...well, since the last time he fought Ibushi. Who would argue that he hadn’t done his best?

Ibushi would. Kenny knew it. Ibushi had put his body on the line too, and he deserved better than a count-out victory. But more than any sense of obligation to his best friend and lover, Kenny rolled into the ring at nineteen because he _could_. The pain he was in was excruciating, sure, but it was dwarved by the pure ecstasy of pro wrestling at its purest, at its best. He was in a different world now. A world Kota had deigned to let him into. A world without pain, where wrestling felt good and every motion of their bodies was imbued with a transcendental, captivating perfection.


	2. Chapter 2

_ January 4, 2017 _

The atmosphere inside the Bullet Club locker room leading up to the main event was somber, to say the least. Their absentee leader had been pacing the hallways since the beginning of Naito vs Tanahashi, and they had, with one exception, failed to win a single title match on the card. They sat in silence, icing bruised limbs and sore abs, listless and dejected even in the face of Yujiro’s escorts’ good-natured attempts to cheer them up. So when someone knocked on their door in the middle of Kenny’s entrance, Bad Luck Fale’s deep and heartfelt “fuck off!” was understandable. Still, the knocking continued well into Okada’s introduction, and it was Tama Tonga who threw up his hands and went to open the door. 

He’d expected a sponsor or a journalist, maybe someone from the head office or one of the Bucks. Instead, he was greeted timidly by a Japanese woman with light brown hair standing in the doorway with her hands clasped in front of her. Nothing about her attire -- navy leggings and a leather jacket -- gave Tama any hints as to what she was doing here. She didn’t look like a fan; in fact, she looked like she would rather be anywhere else. 

“The fuck you want?” Tama asked. The woman started when she saw his face paint, which he hadn’t bothered to clean off after his and Tonga Loa’s match, but she regained her composure and said with a deep bow, “ _ Hajimemashite. Mimori Suzuko desu. Ojama deshitara gomennasai, Tonga-san.” _

_ “Nihongo wakarimasen,”  _ said Tama. He looked over his shoulder and called out, “HEY, PIMP!”

“Ah, n-no, it’s okay, I speak a little English”

“NEVER MIND!” He turned back to the woman. “Who are you?”

“I’m Suzuko Mimori. I’m a voice actress. I accompanied Tiger Mask W to the ring earlier this evening?”

“Who is it?” Adam Cole called from his seat in front of the TV.

“Suzuko Mimori. She’s a voice actress.”

Tonga Loa started cackling like a hyena. Miss Mimori shrunk back even further.

Hangman Page, lying supine on the floor and nursing a hurt back, asked weakly, “What’s she been in?”

“What have you been in?” asked Tama.

“Uh…I was Umi Sonoda in  _ Love Live _ .”

Before Tama could relay this information, Hangman sat straight up.

“Let her in,” he said. 

“Oh, about that…” The woman looked over her shoulder, and Tama was beginning to wonder if she was in some kind of trouble. There was the typical nervousness Japanese people had around  _ gaijin _ with white face paint, and then there was the embarrassment and discomfort this woman carried in her posture and her voice.

She cleared her throat. “Tiger Mask would like to watch the match in here if that’s okay with all of you.”

* * *

 

_ January 5, 2017 _

_ Tokyo Dome Hotel _

When Fale told Nick what happened, he bristled like an angry cat and gestured for the Underboss to follow him into the hall so as not to wake up Kenny or Matt. When they were alone, Nick began asking questions with the businesslike intensity he usually reserved for bookers, sponsors and anything else involving the monetary side of things. 

“Tiger Mask W? From the anime?”

“Yeah, he opened the show. Did the moonsault to the floor, remember?”

“I remember. Was ACH with him?”

“Who?”

“The cruiserweight? Black guy from Texas, does that second-rope 450? He was Tiger’s opponent, under the mask.”

“Did he tag with…”

“Ishimori.”

“Ishimori, yeah! In the Junior tag tournament. I do remember ‘im. No he wasn’t there, just some actress. Minoru Suzuki.”

“Try again.”

“Somefin’ like that. Real shy little thing. She powered through it though, did all the talking for ‘im.”

“Did he take off his mask?”

“‘Course not. He barely moved once he settled down. Just kinda sat there, wound tighter ‘n a drum. ‘Cept when Kenny did that moonsault over the barricade. He was on his feet for the rest of the match after that. We all were.”

“Wait, wait, wait. You let him in?”

“Yeah. Him and Tama were about to throw down but then the bell rang and Tama just said ‘fuck it’ and sat back down. Tiger didn’t bother anyone after that so we let him stay. Actually, he was pretty good company.”

“Do you know who he is?”

“No. No one else in the locker room seemed to know. Cole’s actually real keen on figuring it out. I personally don’t give a shit.”

“Good. Keep this to yourselves and -- look at me, Fale.”

“I’m looking at-”

“ _ Do not  _ tell Kenny any of this. Don’t tell him anyone was here. He’s got enough on his mind already, he doesn’t need to be worrying about this right now.”

Fale shook his head. “I can’t do that. Bullet Club don’t keep secrets from their own.”

“Fale, that is absolutely not true. Devitt never told us he was leaving until he already had a contract drawn up with Triple H. AJ didn’t tell us he was taking Gallows and Anderson with him to Stamford. There’s plenty about Kenny that you don’t know, and it’s because you don’t need to know it. This is one of those things Kenny doesn’t need to know. Got it?”

Fale’s lip curled just a fraction of an inch, and Nick realized how little the Bullet Club hierarchy would protect him if Fale decided it was worth the infinitesimal effort it would take to smash Nick’s brain like a grape. It was a fleeting thought for both men, and thankfully, Fale nodded and walked back down the hall to the elevators, leaving Nick alone in the quiet hallway.

He opened the door to see Kenny propped up on one elbow, squinting against the square of light leaking through the open door. 

“Wha’ happuh?” Kenny asked.

“Just talking to one of the guys.”

“Who?”

Nick thought quickly.

“Bone Soldier.”

“Aw, fuck...remind me to fire him tomorrow.”

“Will do, Kenny. Go back to sleep.”

He was already snoring.

* * *

 

_ April 5, 2015 _

The venue security and a squad of nervous-looking Young Lions in their red jackets held back the members of Bullet Club while Okada and Gedo exited the ring, leaving AJ splayed out on the mat. Four of them were trying to restrain Tama as he screamed over their shoulders. 

“AJ’s gonna kill you, motherfucker! Bullet Club’s gonna paint your brains all over the fuckin’ street you punk bitch!” 

Kenny just stood there. 

When security finally backed away, Tama and Yujiro rushed into the ring. Kenny forced himself to follow them, and the three of them picked up AJ and helped him to the back.

“Got me in the...freakin’ jaw,” AJ muttered. “Get off me, guys, I’m okay. I’m okay. Can you believe the nerve?” 

They had reached gorilla, where Gallows, Anderson, and the Jackson brother with the sideburns--Hank or something--had gathered to carry the defending champion back to the locker room on their shoulders. Now, they all shared a look of concern as they walked alongside AJ, offering him water and beer. AJ cracked open a Coors Light, took a sip and handed it off to Gallows. “Can you believe that son of a bitch? Sneakin’ up behind me, puttin’ his foot on my chest while his little potato buddy mouths off about...Kenny!” 

Kenny started.  _ Here it comes _ . He braced for AJ’s wrath.

“What was that dude even saying?”

“...Huh?”

“The bald guy. Okada’s friend. Jiro, or umm…” AJ tried to click his fingers but the gloves muffled the sound. “You know! He’s like four foot tall? Wears a bandana to cover up the fact that he’s got no eyes, like a cave lizard?”

Kenny stared.

“The, the fuckin’...” He started pantomiming pounding an open palm on the canvas from ringside. “Come on, Rainmaker, COME OOOOOON,” he screamed, affecting a high, scratchy voice. 

“Oh...Gedo. Y-yeah, I didn’t hear him.” He cleared his throat. 

“Well, whatever! We’re gonna get him back. I ain’t losin’ this title for a long time, especially not to no...glittery, white meat, frosted-tips pretty boy and his goblin friend.”

“I’ll Too Sweet that,” chimed Anderson.

The gaggle erupted into cheers as they walked off, leaving Kenny feeling like he was in one of those dreams where he had died and everybody knew it but him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Introducing the Young Bucks: Hank and Stank Jackson.


End file.
